Residents Say Coliseum Area Is Blooming

Nobody ever talks about the roses.

Or the museums.

Or the people who could have left, but chose to stay.

By the time the news about the neighborhood surrounding the Los Angeles Coliseum travels to the world outside, all things beautiful have fallen away, like wilted petals. What remains is the thorny image of a gritty community wracked by social ills.

“People don’t necessarily think of this community and think of the Rose Garden,” Levi Kingston, a longtime community resident, said of the popular attraction in Exposition Park. “It’s a strange thing.”

Apparently neither do the National Football League owners.

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Since the Los Angeles Raiders packed up and headed back to Oakland in 1995, the Coliseum has been without an NFL team. City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas has spearheaded efforts to attract an NFL franchise to a refurbished and reconfigured Coliseum.

The stadium would anchor one end of a “sports corridor,” with a new downtown arena on the other. The City Council has agreed to a “memorandum of understanding” that would allow construction of the $200-million sports and entertainment complex at the Convention Center.

Though reluctant to say so publicly, NFL owners point to the community around the Coliseum as the reason for their lukewarm response to efforts to locate a football team there.

But residents say rehashed rumors and overplayed images do not begin to encompass their reality. There are problems, but there are also people and institutions working for change--sometimes together, sometimes alone.

They include African Americans, Latinos and whites, a former Raider turned developer and a Salvadoran exile with organizing skills honed back home.

The NFL’s attitude has left 10-year resident Lillian Marenco indignant.

“Oh, please . . . excuses, excuses,” she said. “These people should become more involved in the community. They shouldn’t point fingers and accuse us. All these people in sports should be more involved with children.”

Former Raider offensive tackle Shelby Jordan declares that the neighborhood has been given a bad rap.

“Any working family that is looking for a neighborhood to live in should consider this neighborhood,” he said.

Michael and Claudia Noonan say they never experienced on the Westside the community spirit they have found near USC, the area they moved to in 1990. Noonan, who is white, was surprised to learn that his neighborhood is much more diverse than he imagined and not nearly as horrific as legend implies.

“I think most people who regard it with fear have no knowledge of it whatsoever,” Noonan said. “They’ve never seen it or visited it. There’s a much more intense and deeper sense of involvement or commitment to making things better on the part of the people.”

The neighborhood has been Kingston’s home for 25 years. As a kid he ran in high school track meets at the Coliseum. As an adult he has spent much of his time involving himself in issues that touch the lives of people who live here.

For Kingston, any revenue-generating team would benefit the neighborhood, but he--unlike some city officials--is not pinning his hopes on the NFL. His community, he said, has too many other issues with which to contend.

The departure of the Raiders left the community with fewer jobs and fewer entrepreneurial opportunities, such as renting parking spaces to fans.

“I’ve argued before the Coliseum Commission that I’m just as concerned about a soccer team as I am about a football team coming,” Kingston said.

“I’m not rah-rah,” Kingston said about the prospect of an NFL team. “I’m looking at it rationally: If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, we still have to move on in this community.”

His passion lies with projects such as the Hoover Intergenerational Child Development Center, on Hoover Street across from Hebrew Union College. He founded the center 20 years ago, and it provides low-cost child care to 82 children, mostly from South-Central and Pico-Union.

“People can work and participate in training programs and go to school” because of the center, said Kingston. “That’s a major source of gratification for us.”

Similarly, Marenco does not see an NFL team as her first priority. Her gratification comes from organizing the neighborhood’s burgeoning Latino population. She helped organize her block club and is active in the Southern California Organizing Committee, one of the most aggressive grass-roots groups in the city.

She was forced to leave El Salvador 25 years ago after organizing workers to protest election fraud. The government gave her an option: Leave or be tried for crimes against the state.

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So Marenco, the mother of three children, built a new life for herself in “a place where I can be free to speak. We tell the people it’s OK to become a block club captain. They think it’s a very big thing, that you have to be very smart and know everything.”

Through her organizing she met people such as Lou Edward, 60, who has lived in his house on Halldale since 1964. Once a Raider season ticket holder, Edward and his 9-year-old grandson Andre Joyner regularly attended games together. Edward hopes for an NFL return.

“Definitely,” he said. “I love football.”

And his community.

With their block clubs and larger community coalitions, Marenco and Edward have helped close down troublesome liquor stores. They have painted out graffiti, cleaned up streets and torn down signs from chain-link fences that surround empty lots.

On game days Edward donned a yellow jacket and served as a community host, answering Raiders fans’ questions and providing directions.

“Crime has gone down in this area,” Edward said. “I believe that being organized in the block club has helped. We’ve shared information with neighbors.”

That kind of cooperation has forged a bridge among believers in the neighborhood, pulling them together and pushing them into action.

Marenco and a group of neighbors are building a small park near her house on a lot at 27th Street and Budlong Avenue.

“When I moved here there were no children,” she said. “All of these children, they came like popcorn. Children were playing on the street. We need a place for them to go.”

A private donor provided the land and USC donated $30,000. For Jordan, this type of arrangement--neighborhood initiative supported by institutional dollars--is a recipe for success.

He now spends his time building low-income and affordable housing in the community surrounding his former home stadium.

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After retiring in 1988, Jordan volunteered at Faithful Central Missionary Baptist Church, driving a van that picked up homeless people on cold and wet nights. That led to an interest in housing and to a plan to build units that did not cost 50% of a family’s monthly income.

By 1993 the church’s development arm had completed a 23-unit, $2.6-million townhome project. Students from USC tutor children who live in the complex.

Although USC has long been criticized for lack of involvement in the community--what some residents called a “fortress mentality”--Jordan sees the school as a major community asset.

“Children have free access to a world-class park with museums, as well as a nearby university that is in partnership with various schools in the area,” he said.

Already he has plans for a second 40-unit development. Down the line he sees the creation of a village with a theater and a greenbelt.

As proud as Jordan is of the townhouse development, he talks to residents about leaving.

“We say to them, ‘Please don’t get comfortable living here,’ ” Jordan said. “Save your money. Look forward to owning your own home.”

In this neighborhood, this is the time to think big, Jordan said. A dizzying amount of plans and money are at work in the area, including an expansion at USC, Caltrans improvements and a massive renovation of Exposition Park.

Bob Campbell, deputy director of the California Museum of Science and Industry, which oversees the Exposition Park expansion, put it simply: “Everybody gets something.”

“You’re talking about a billion-dollar project,” said Campbell, who lost a bid for the state Assembly last year. “Whenever you have a massive public works project the spillover goes miles around,” he said. “Property values increase. Pride in the community increases.”

And people get jobs.

The museums have long operated programs for area youths, but the expansion project includes the creation of a science school, hailed by educators and community residents.

“The kids will get some exposure to an intensified and well-endowed educational program that they probably would not get otherwise,” Campbell said. “And it’s all happening in our community.”

The way Kingston sees it, all of these initiatives should be factored in when considering his neighborhood.

“It’s all related,” he said, and it all adds up to hope and possibilities.

He even has an idea to keep people talking about the roses. This fall a group Kingston heads is inviting the entire city to a big festival in Exposition Park.

Its name? The Rose Garden Arts Festival.